As schools in Australia close for our long Christmas/summer holidays, I take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a very happy and safe holiday period, however you celebrate it. May moments of joy be abundant and opportunities to relax and refresh plentiful. Most of all, may you find time for those things that bring you most enjoyment. Life is, after all, meant to be fun.
I will be taking a blogging break for a few weeks to rest and recuperate after a very busy year. I’m hopeful that, early in 2023, we’ll have a fresher new-look website (after it’s had a chance to rest and rejuvenate too).
With best wishes for the Christmas period and wondrous possibilities in 2023.
This saying was unfamiliar to me, as it was for many of the other writers. It means that it’s not my business, not my responsibility.
For my response, I’ve drawn upon the mountains of lost property that are collected during the school year, items for which children didn’t take responsibility at the time and may not always recognise as theirs when it comes time to claim them.
At the last school I was at, we had one lovely mother who would collect all the items, take them home and wash them, bag those that were named and return them to the owners, and make the others available for collection. She was an angel, and many parents were indebted to her for this very generous and money-saving service. Unclaimed items may have been used as ‘spares’ or sold as second-hand in the uniform shop.
My story is entirely fiction. I hope you enjoy it.
Not My Monkeys. Not My Circus.
Students, instructed to reclaim missing items, trooped past tables overflowing with lost property. Anything not claimed would be discarded.
Henry couldn’t remember what he had to find.
“Not my hat. Not my jacket,” he said. “Not my shoe, not my sock. Not my undies. Pee-ew! Not my lunchbox. Not my water bottle. Not my monkeys. Not my circus.”
“Wait. Monkeys? Circus?”
Henry took the Barrel of Monkeys and the painting.
“Look,” said one helper, amused. “Henry’s mum told him to find three hats, two pairs of shoes and a jacket.”
“Not my monkey. Not my circus,” said the other.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.
Note: The collection of stories made in response to the previous prompt Oh My! including mine, will be available to read at the Carrot Ranch as soon as the WordPress Happiness Engineers work out a technical glitch for Charli. (Good luck, Charli!)
Today it is my pleasure to review a fun new picture book Cheese on Toast, written by Kelly Louise Jarris. This post is part of a Books on Tour promotion.
About author Kelly Louise Jarris
As a mother of four boys, Kelly Jarris has been lucky enough to see the diversity in each child, which is how the characters came about for her first book, Wonderful Wishes. Kelly also writes and appreciates stories from life experiences, with her recently released picture book, Imagine Our Special Place. Her sister’s journey with terminal cancer inspired Kelly to write a book that touches on sibling bonds, imagination and feelings of the unknown. Her third, fun picture book is Cheese on Toast.
Kelly has a background in veterinary nursing and was once an Australian wildlife rescuer.
Mum has prepared a delicious roast for dinner full of healthy vegetables like green beans, peas and carrots, but her son is not pleased. Will mum be able to convince him to give it a try?
This quirky, fun book is about a little boy who would rather have cheese on toast than mum’s yummy roast. Cheese On Toast is designed to get kids involved in the story while reading out aloud.
This catchy rhyme encourages reluctant readers to recite the words and participate in the story.
Kids can look out for a secret little carrot character hiding on each page, making it a little interactive for even the youngest readers.
What I like about Cheese on Toast
The child narrator of Cheese on Toast will be familiar to many parents with his insistence on having cheese on toast for dinner, rather than the lovely roast meal that his mum has prepared. Some children will eat anything that’s put in front of them, (I had one of those.) while some tend to the fussy side. (I also had one of those.) Getting the fussy ones to accept new tastes can be problematic for parents. Why not look on the lighter side with a fun picture book?
The rhythmic rhyming text with the repetitive refrain ‘What I really want the most, is some yummy cheese on toast’ encourages children to
Norah Colvin 